Unloading some Loot

Breyurlos' House, Lossal, Tarlanor, 28th May 1655

Having stripped the two Fae Mhor corpses of anything Bereloth indicated was magical, Gorfang and Eloy examined their haul. Without the assistance of an arcanist, they couldn't pinpoint the uses of the items, and most they set aside for later checking. Eloy slipped the priestess's ring onto his finger, but nothing visible happened. Gorfang hefted a sword, chuckling as he offered to test whether it was a Ring of Protection but Eloy declined, and took it off again.

The orc turned his attention to the backpack the dark elf assassin had been wearing. The sword indicated it was magical but what might it do? Experimenting, he made a heap of all the magical items in their haul, and packed them into it. Despite there being quite a stack, some of which were longer than the backpack, it all went in easily. Something like a Bag of Holding? Or were the contents gone? He reached in again to rummage for one of the bucklers - and it was instantly in his hand. Good enough.

"Was there anything already in there?" asked Eloy. Gorfang didn't hesitate; he upended the bag and dumped out the entire contents. Everything he'd put in came out, plus some mundane Fae Mhor rations and possessions, a bag of poisoned caltrops, a small blowpipe and a flat pack of poisoned darts. Eloy took the caltrops, and Gorfang repacked the rest into the bag for later identification.

There were a fair number of sets of Fae Mhor clothing scattered around, and with an eye to possible later infilltration plans Eloy assembled himself the requirements for a variety of disguises, and added those to the bag.

This done, they explored the upper floor. The first room they opened had four bedrolls, each with a bag or bundle packed and laid on top. These - by the looks of it, the possessions of the rank-and-file warriors they'd fought downstairs - yielded little more than some odd coins.

Next door was what appeared to be the assassin's room. A small bag of personal effects was stacked next to a rather larger and heavier bag, which contained a tunic, trews, mailshirt, boots, battleaxe, round helm and a Kordic prayer-hammer. The clothes, presumably, of Breyurlos the dwarf. Was he dead? There were no holes in the clothes or bloodstains. Gorfang packed it all in the haversack for later use. Eloy meanwhile had been searching the rest of the room, and had come up with a very nicely balanced throwing knife hidden behind a mirror.  They turned to leave the room, but as Gorfang opened the door, a brass dart shot from just above, missing him narrowly and sticking into the floor. Gorfang smashed the mechanism with the priestess's mace and they moved on.

The next room they looked in turned out to have been the priestess's. Again, all her belongings were packed ready for departure. A large crate contained personal effects, a bedroll, and a few more books of gloomy religious dogma. The smaller box looked trapped, and the pair spent some considerable time fiddling with it with the torturer's tools before finally managing to disarm the trap.

Inside they found a shed skin from  the priestess's snake familiar, a collapsed personal prie-dieu of Lolth, and a map. While Eloy threw the shirine to the floor and pissed on it, Gorfang looked over the map. He'd seen one before; this was the map of Morglas that the Fae Mhor in Hightower had been carrying, though this one had a large circle drawn around the ruins of the city of Amberlan.

Descending and returning to the kitchens, the pair considered the spider-infested store room. Eloy was all for fire-bombing it with oil but Gorfang lit a torch and investigated. A small area near the door was accessible without touching the webs, and the orc peered further into the room from there.

The webs, as expected, were alive with spiders, myriads of tiny ones and around two dozen larger ones. They clicked and rattled as they watched the adventurers, and once Gorfang fired a few of the webs and they became more agitated, running back and forth and arguing amongst themselves. Some of their speech was in the Fae Mhor language, cursing and wondering where the 'two-leg masters' were. Eloy tried responding in the same language and claiming to be the 'new' masters, but the spiders dissmissed this as he didn't bear 'the mark of our Mistress'.

Both strung their bows, and took pot-shots at the spiders, killing two. The spiders retreated further back into the room, where the sticky web strands snagged at the flying arrows and deflected them, but not enough, and another was killed. Distantly, the sound of breaking glass was heard, and the spiders made their escape though a back window.

Gorfang and Eloy cut their way through the webs to where ten well-wrapped humanoid forms hung in the strands. Most were dead - one skewered by one of Gorfang's arrows to boot - but two, both lizardmen, were alive if groggy and anemic. Once freed, they named themselves as  Thak and Gral, and directed their rescuers to one of the other bodies whom they described as having had possessions worth claiming. Sure enough, under the wrapped and shrivelled husk was a purse packed with gold and a scroll of two spells, which Eloy reckoned he could probably use.

Guiding the two bleary lizardmen to the stables, the pair harnessed two horses to the wagon and drove it out the street, not without a couple of bumps on the way. They dropped Thak and Gral off near their homes, and went on through the gathering night to the Mage-Guild.

Mageguild, Lossal, Tarlanor, 28th May 1655

Eloy had been to the outside of the Mageguild before, and Lynien had described it to them, so both knew where non-casters could go for magical services. Abandoning the wagon, they entered the sprawling campus through the public entrance. Above their heads, and around, the rubies set in the arch flashed in honour of the magic they carried with them.

It was only a few moments after they'd stepped through the arch into the pleasant, lawned quadrangle beyond, that a young wizard stepped up to them and smiled welcomingly. "Good evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly, "what can I do for you?" His manner was nervous; it was clear that were he not a Guild Doorwarden he would think twice about approaching the massive, armoured orc and the black-clad Eloy with his disturbing gaze. Gorfang did not disappoint.

"I want to train as a magician." he stated. The man swallowed, clearly taken aback; this was not what he expected people dressed like this to say. "Is there a problem with that?" Gorfang followed up, lightly; but Eloy could hear the wolf poised to spring in his voice, and recalled how the orc often responded to 'people like you' comments. The young wizard evidently realized this, for he answered with some tact, "No, not at all, it's just an unusual thing for an someone dressed like that to say..." He had moved on to entrance examinations and fees before Gorfang put him out of his misery and confessed that he was actually there to have some magical items identified and to sell some of them. "Show me to a waiting room," he finished.

"Actually, we're quiet tonight," said the young wizard, opening a door. Aloysius here is on duty tonight, and he'll sort you out." An older spellcaster with spectacles was sitting behind a desk, juggling, and he looked up at them and smiled slightly. Eloy turned and with casual mockery flipped a gold piece at the doorwarden. A snap spell blasted it to gold dust before it reached him and the man grinned. "Thanks," he commented, "I needed the practice." He closed the door and left them.

Unpeturbed,  Aloysius lifted his eyebrows. "What have you got for me then?" he asked. Gorfang upended the Haversack - again - and pushed the newly-acquired items into a small heap. There were eight all told, and Aloysius asked 250gp for the task of Identifying them. "I'll give you two hundred," replied Gorfang, "three if I like the answers." Aloysius shrugged, and cast his spells. Most of the items were of little use to the pair - though some bore powerful magic - and after some brisk haggling with Aloysius they were sold off. Oddly, though the dweomer on it was minor, the mage was most interested in the hammer of Bragann Icefair. "You killed him?" he repeated several times in obvoious horror. "But the man's a local hero!" "Was," quipped Eloy. "Where was he when the city was piosed on the edge of riots and chaos?" demanded Gorfang. "Off, lining his pockets. He ran like a girl, he slapped my face like a woman, and I killed him like a pig." Aloysius offered a very good price for the hammer straight away, and seemed very pleased to secure it.

"Now, there's something I'd like you to do," said the orc. "Ah," said Aloysius, "commissions." A book floated over to him  and a quill dipped itself into an ink bottle ready for him to write with. The orc detailed some modifications he wanted doing to various weapons, and was told the likely price and how long it would take. Then Eloy enquired about scrolls of Improved Invisibility, something he'd wanted for his assassinations for some time, and ordered three.

(Log written in the crypt of St Paul's Cathederal, London, over a very nice cup of tea!)